This Saturday night, November 12th, marks that magical time again when Syfy dips into the Sasquatchploitation genre for a new movie. If you want to witness what it looks like when the Abominable Snowman gets pissed, then have a look at these video clips from Rage of the Yeti.

The first thing you need to understand about this Yeti flick is that the Yeti isn’t really a Yeti. It’s actually a Yeren, the film’s original title. (Yeren, that is; not It’s Actually a Yeren. But how funny would that have been?) The “Yeren” is described as a smaller breed of Bigfoot said to roam China’s remote Hubei province. The name “Yeren” translates to “Chinese Wildman”.

But who the hell in America knows what a Yeren is so Rage of the Yeti it is.

21 Responses to “Rage of the Yeti”

Why is it always “Rage, Vengeance, Horror, etc. of the Yeti”? Why isn’t it ever “The Yeti Twins Go To The Mall”, “Harold and Kumar and Yeti”,
“Yeti Jones and the Tower of Razors”, “Blobsquatch Behind A Tree”, “Tom Cruise Is Knee-High To A Yeti”? The possibilities are endless. Someone should tell Adam Sandler.

But I have to agree with Loren. After seeing the previews, I set my autotune to put this movie on automatically. I was looking forward all day to watching this movie.

As it was, this movie is in the running for not only the worst crypto-movie of all time, but the worst movie. Period. It didn’t take long for me to decide to watch the movie on the Military Channel instead.

There are far too many things wrong in even the short part I watched to list here.

The best Yeti movie, in my opinion, was the old black-and-white one with Basil Rathbone.

The best Squatch movie was “Snowbeast”. I think the critter was played by Michael Landon.

@airgunner: Do you mean 1957’s “The Abominable Snowman” with Peter Cushing? Because that is certainly one of if not THEE best Yeti flick to date, whereas the all time worst used to be “Snow Creature” from 1954.

As gridbug says it must be the 1957 Hammer film with Peter Cushing and Forrest Tucker. It was made just before Hammer made Horror of Dracula, also with Cushing (and Christopher Lee of course).

Hammer Studios knocked are a surprisingly large number of good films in the 1950s and 1960s.

Speaking of Basil Rathbone (which you did) Peter Cushing (and Christopher Lee again) also starred together in the 1959 Hammer version of The Hound of the Baskervilles which, in my opinion is the best version of that story ever filmed. Cushing was great as Sherlock Holmes though a notch below Rathbone and the even better Jeremy Brett.

THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN OF THE HIMALAYAS is an excellent film, with some truly creepy moments. It’s a real gem, and the black and white only enhances the overall mood and impact. The scene from the cave is one of the more terrifying episodes I’ve seen in any horror movie, and the film does a great job in capturing the feel of immense isolation and loneliness of the Himalayas, which is aptly named “The Roof of the World.” It’s an overlooked classic, and one of Hammer’s best films in my opinion. I’m even thinking about getting one of the movie posters for the rec room. TCM recently held a Halloween marathon with many Hammer movies in the lineup.

Sadly, you won’t find too many decent, serious movies these days with a cryptozoological antagonist. Slash and gore, with lame CGI graphics, is the current staple, and they’re simply out for cheesy (or worse) thrills. If you want some mindless fun and chaos, I guess that’s fine. THE DESCENT from a few years back was pretty good. I liked THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES with Richard Gere too. If you’re looking for some fictional literary entertainment I think you’ll have some better fortune. My book MONSTERS from Dark Regions Press is themed around mythical creatures, and received some great reviews, including from Famous Monsters of Filmland. You might also want to try Algernon Blackwood’s “The Wendigo,” probably the best story ever written which features a cryptid.

Yes. I turned on the TV a couple weeks ago to come in on the middle of another Yeti/Sasquatch movie. I didn’t get the title, but it was a whole lot better than “Rage of the Yeti” (doesn’t say much for it).

This one had a winter plane crash. The survivors laid the dead bodies out in the snow, and holed up in the wreck. Finally, they got hungry and decided to eat their dead companions. That is when they noticed some of the bodies were missing. The Yetis/Squatches were taking the bodies and eating them.

The cryptos were not into sharing. They began attacking the survivors.

This was a much better move than RotY. It actually had a plot, and did not rely on computer generated images. The critters looked awfully familiar. Except for the color (they were white), they looked just like the creature in the “Messin’ with Sasquatch” commercials.

RotY was strangely reminiscent of “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”, although the latter had much more realistic animation and story.

I’m not sure why most bigfoot films are so horrible. Filming some guys sitting around a campfire at night acting as if they were frightened by anything and everything that went bump in the night would be scarier than most of the newer bigfoot/yeti movies are unless of course those people were named Matt, Bobo, Cliff and Renae. In that case you’d have a bad comedy instead of a bad horror story.

I’ve got to agree with the folks who think that “The Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas” was one of the best yeti films. I first saw it as a kid but I remember being creeped out by the gong and chanting monks at the Yak and Yeti hotel’s web site just a few years ago because they reminded me of the monastery in the movie.

The movie with the plane crash might be either SASQUATCH MOUNTAIN or ABOMINABLE, both which aired on…you guessed it, Sci Fi (I still call it that). I’m not totally sure which, but Lance Henriksen is in both — who I really like — just not in these lamer films. He was great in Millennium among others.

Anyone remember that cover from the book STRANGE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN? It depicts a very ferocious beast on a snowcapped mountain, attacking someone with a club. I remember reading this book as a kid and the stories really freaked me out. I think they’re supposed to be true accounts of sightings. I’ll have to dig it up, because my memory is vague. But if you can create a movie or write a story conveying that creature on the cover, I think you’re on to something!

RE: Rage of the Yeti: Sometimes (usually when theres nothing else to do) you just need to sit down and watch a movie with horrible acting and crappy special effects. Thats what I did, and it was a good 30 seconds too. I had some good laughs! Seriously though, that was a LOW budget movie. It was nothing like horror, in fact, it was more like all the characters were pretending they were kids having an imaginary adventure in the Himalayas, hunting yetis. wow. you know what the yerens looked like? that snow creature from star wars, minus the missing arm. you know whats the worst part? i didnt even see that movie on syfy, it was on chiller! not too scary if you ask me.